


Loved Not Wisely

by icarus_chained



Category: Original Work
Genre: Choices, Curses, Death, Defiance, F/M, Gods, Killing, Legends, Love, Other, Promises, Prompt Fic, Reincarnation, Soul Bond, Star-crossed, damnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 12:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3381521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are such things as paired souls, drawn to each other across all the cycles of reincarnation. This is the story of one pair, whose love was so great that a god cursed them out of jealousy, so that they should always meet as enemies, and recognise each other only as they met their doom at each other's hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loved Not Wisely

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt: 'they are reincarnated lovers who have a chance to get it right this time'. I'm in a depressive mood, apparently, because this ... doesn't quite go like that -_-;

"Have you ever heard the story of the fated lovers?"

The wounded soldier lay back, resting against his killer's chest. She cradled him gently, her hand smoothing his hair back from his face. The action smeared blood across his forehead, from the wound in his side that she had tried to stanch. Both of them ignored it.

"N-no," he managed, breathing shallowly in her arms. Then he paused, for a second, and spoke again more slowly. "At least, I didn't think so. But I--"

"There are such things as paired souls," she said, her voice low and filled with tears. He heard them, though he couldn't see her face. Strangely, in this half-dead place, he thought he knew the reason for them. "Souls that belong together, that find each other over and over again, through all the cycles of reincarnation. They cannot be separated. As soon as they touch each other, no matter who or what they are now, they will know each other for the souls they are."

His breath hitched. It burned like fire in his chest, the pain of a failing body too roughly disturbed, but he didn't notice that. There was another sensation blooming inside him, a feeling in his very heart and his soul, and against it a mere dying body meant nothing. His breathing staggered, and he clutched at her other hand.

"It is said," she went on, resting her head atop his, burying her face in his hair. "It is said that there was once such a pair. Lovers, whose love was so great and so complete that it offended one of the gods. Out of jealousy, that god cursed them. He wagered their fate against his life in a game with Destiny, and when it was allowed, he laid his curse upon them. That though they would always be drawn together, their bond unbreakable, never again would they be born to the same side. Always, there would be a divide placed between them. Loyalties to causes that could never be reconciled. Loves that could never be joined together. From that cycle onwards, he cursed them that they should always meet as enemies, and know each other only as they met their doom at the other's hand."

"... I remember," the soldier managed, bringing her hand to his lips. He pressed a bloody kiss upon her palm, as gently as he knew how. "I feel it. I remember you. I do."

She shuddered against him. He felt her tears begin to fall, felt the hot sting of them on the back of his neck. He felt her crying, the passion of her grief as she held the love she had killed, the beloved enemy that was the other half of her soul. He felt her pain. He remembered it.

"... I killed you last time, as well," she whispered, ragged while she held him close. "It's not fair. I survived you the last time too. We're supposed to take turns, my love. It wasn't supposed to be me this time."

"I'm sorry," he said, with honest grief. He remembered that too. She had been older then, and male, a fierce, black-eyed warrior of a land far south that neither of them had seen this life around. She had killed him cleanly for her master's honour, and he had died before they had done more than realise who they were. Their lives had been short that time, he thought. For the grief in that warrior's eyes, he did not think she had survived him long. "I'm not ... I was not well trained, this time. I cou-couldn't match you. I'm sorry."

She shook her head behind him. He felt fainter now. He knew he was slipping away from her. From a surge of strength, a defiance far older than his current form, he pulled his hands from hers to press down on his wound once more, to stem the flow of his life's blood. A few more minutes. A little longer in her presence. He could do that much. Having failed her yet again, he could at least do that much.

"When will he let us go?" she asked him, in a voice wild and broken by long pain. "When will it be over, my love? I don't know that I can bear to survive you another time. I don't know how much longer I can bear to kill you."

For a long second, he said nothing. Blood trickled past his fingers, pain ebbed and flowed through his veins. He had so little time. But it must be said right. The only hope he could offer her. It had to be said rightly.

"... So long as we love each other," he said, slowly and carefully, so that his wound would not disrupt him. "It will never end, so long as our love remains. I think ... I think the day you kill me, and do not regret, that day he will let it end. It was our love that wounded him. He will let us go when at last we love no longer."

She fell still. Her shudders ceased, her ragged breaths, and in their place there dawned a soft, terrible stillness. She had always been the fiercer soul between them. She had always been the quickest to anger and to hate, and the slowest to forgive. Sometimes it had manifested as a sense of justice, others as a sense of vengeance. He had admired it either way. He had loved the fierceness of her, even without knowing her, each and every life they lived.

"He cannot think that I will ever let that happen," she said softly. Her strength shone in every word of it, adamantine and furious. "To kill you and-- He cannot think that. He cannot think I would ever willingly let you fall."

"Couldn't you?" he asked, very carefully. He felt the fury of her, the rage and disbelief. It did not frighten him. It never had. No matter how many times she killed him, no matter how many times he died beneath her hand, he could never hope to fear her. "We have lived ... We have been cursed for so long. You have endured so much pain. Because of me. Because of our love. Could you not ... Could you not learn to hate me for that? Even once?"

"Could _you_?" she asked him back, cold and furious, and he fell silent. Her arm lay tight around his chest, her hand cool and stained upon his forehead, and he could not finish. 

"... No," he admitted, very softly. No, he couldn't. He knew her. Always and forever, he knew her. Her soul was the other half of his. He knew each and every choice she had ever made, he knew her reasons each and every time. He knew that she had never wished to kill him, nor he her. Every blow her hand had struck him, he had forgiven before it fell. He couldn't do otherwise. They killed each other over and over again for a god's hate. Not for their own. Never once, never knowingly, for their own.

He could never knowingly destroy her. While his soul remembered her, while he knew himself for who he was, he would never in all the cycles of eternity consent to strike her down.

"... We are damned," he told her softly. Faintly, as the last of his life trickled away. "He knew it. He always knew it. For love of you, I cannot save you. For love of you, I cannot let you go."

She was silent for a moment. Long enough that he almost thought it too late, that he should fade before she found strength to answer. She was not so weak, though. He should have known that. She would never let herself be so weak. She moved out from behind him. She eased him down, laid him on the ground, and let him finally see this new face she wore once more. She met his eyes, the other half of his soul, and in hers he found again all that he had loved from the beginning, and would love forever more.

"I love you," she told him, reaching out to touch his cheek. "Though it damn us forever, I will never stop loving you. Let him gnash his teeth for all eternity. I'll not break for his sake. I will not let you fall just to escape his wrath. Do you hear me, my love? Do you understand?"

"Yes," he said, taking her hand in his. He smiled at her. There was no pain, now. He felt light beyond measure. "Always and forever, my love. Let there come a thousand deaths. To know you, even for just a moment each time, will be worth them all." 

She smiled through her tears. She traced his cheek gently, leaned down to rest her lips above his. He held his breath. It was his last. He knew that. He held it close, to share with her.

"It's your turn next time," she whispered to him. "You have to kill me. For my sake. Don't forget, my love. Next time, it's your turn to do the killing."

He couldn't promise it. She knew he couldn't. If he opened his mouth, his last breath would fly away, and there would be no more promises between them. Each time, every time, there was only that last breath. That pledge, pressed into each other's keeping. In all the cycles of damnation, so long as they yet clung to love, it was the only promise they had chance to keep.

And so they kept it. This time, as every time. She pressed her lips to his, offered her body as his vessel once again, and he breathed his last breath into her keeping. His soul sighed out, hers now and for all eternity, and knew her touch once more, ever briefly, once again.

There were such things as paired souls, he thought, forever drawn to each other across all the cycles of eternity, finding each other again and again across a thousand different lives. There were souls that could be cursed, to recognise each other only as they destroyed each other, united in love and forever divided in death, for the sake of nothing more than a god's jealousy. There were souls that had a chance, each time they meet, to learn to hate for love's sake, and escape damnation by breaking what could not otherwise be broken.

And there was one pair, ever and always, that would refuse that chance. There was one pair that would make no promise but the last. There was one pair that would pit their love against all the hatred of gods, and see which one might last the cycles longest.

 _That_ was the promise of a fated love.


End file.
